What the film loses in momentum as the romance takes over, it gains in sex appeal as its two attractive actors make their own kind of magic.
Comment
07/11/08
Death Defying Acts (2008)
46
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:37
Fresh:17
Rotten:20
Average Rating:5.1/10
Consensus: Pretty but dull, with unconvincing turns from Zeta-Jones and Pearce. If you want a period magician movie, seek out The Prestige or The Illusionist instead.
Theatrical Release:Jul 11, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: Celebrated director Gillian Armstrong (MY BRILLIANT CAREER, LITTLE WOMEN) helms this film about Harry Houdini's romance with a con woman. In his attempts to contact his dead mother, the magician... [More]
Starring: Guy Pearce, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Timothy Spall, Saoirse Ronan
Director: Gillian Armstrong
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Reviews for Death Defying Acts
All a 'what if' movie needs to win me over are some lush costumes and production design, a smart casting choice or two, and a really ridiculous basic idea. Death Defying Acts obliges on all fronts.
07/11/08
Director Gillian Armstrong is more attentive to decor than the story, which never seems in a hurry to get anyplace in particular and concludes with a thud.
07/11/08
Top CriticZeta-Jones and Pearce don't have much chemistry, the script lacks any significant depth and the direction feels oddly uninspired.
07/11/08
Guy Pierce's performance is perhaps the worst researched role of the year, and Catherine Zeta-Jones never connects to her character's lower class milieu.
07/11/08
Death Defying Acts, a fictionalized love story involving Harry Houdini, could be a sweet little discovery if only the relationship at the core of it were more convincing.
07/11/08
This won’t be remembered as one of the prodigiously talented Armstrong’s great films (My Brilliant Career, High Tide, Little Women), but it’s still 90 percent better than everything else out there.
07/10/08
More fiction that fact, this supernatural romance is intermittently engaging, but there's no chemistry between Guy Pearce and Zeta-Jones, and the film will also suffer in comparison to recent yarns about magicians such as The Illusionist and The Prestige
07/05/08
A cheap inventory of old-hat period romping that downplays Houdini's contempt for psychics while saddling him with corny mommy issues.
07/03/08
Much of the story is smoke and mirrors in terms of fact, but this is pitched more at romance fans than Houdini addicts.
06/30/08
Broadly enjoyable, lovely to look at, with fine work from its lasses – but it’s less than the sum of its parts.
03/20/08
In every technical department, the film is impeccable but at the core there’s something rather frustrating about it.
03/19/08
Trickery, magic, guilt and love are the themes of Gillian Armstrong's intriguing film about Houdini, and the renowned escape artist's affair with a professional psychic.... Armstrong takes the material and shapes it into a splendid tale, a compelling mix
03/06/08
Anchored by Pearce's expectedly charismatic performance, the film generally comes off as a watchable yet entirely unexceptional effort...
10/16/07
So corny and old-fashioned that only diehard romantics are likely to consider it magical.
09/22/07
As a slight and visually arresting little "what if?" tale, one that centers on a pop culture icon who still fascinates us today, Death Defying Acts is a perfectly passable period piece.
09/16/07
Sounding intriguing enough in concept, Death misses the mark onscreen in a way adaptations of deceptively cinematic novels often do.
09/08/07
Latest News for Death Defying Acts
December 04, 2008:
Report Warns UK Tax Credits Turning Off Co-Productions 
A new report claims that UK tax credits aren't sufficient to appeal to UK co-productions. The rules work well for UK films which are set in the UK but they aren't quite as... More...
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